New USA Dinosaur was a Bruiser

New USA dinosaur was a bruiser, reported the Toronto Star, Ontario, Canada, 7 May 7 2005. p. L.07. 'A fossil found in South Dakota is that of a never-before-seen species of dinosaur, a horse-sized plant eater with spikes on its bony flat head, scientists say. "When my colleagues saw a CAT scan of the new fossil, they tore up their family tree diagrams and said, 'Back to the drawing board!'" paleontologist Robert Bakker says. "We never suspected such a creature existed." In announcing the find on Monday, Children's Museum of Indianapolis said discovery of the flat-headed member of the pachycephalosaur family changes the view of dinosaur history during the final days of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago. It shows that family trees were still evolving even as the entire dinosaur world was about to go extinct. The nearly complete pachycephalosaur skull was donated to the museum by three amateur fossil hunters from Iowa who found it in 2003 while exploring the Hell Creek Formation in central South Dakota. The discovery was announced in Indianapolis in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums.’

Editorial Comment: The most important line in the above report is from dinosaur expert Robert Bakker who stated, "When my colleagues saw a CAT scan of the new fossil, they tore up their family tree diagrams and said, 'Back to the drawing board!'. We never suspected such a creature existed." What a shame they didn't tear up all their evolutionary family trees. Then they would have been closer to the truth. But his comments also tell you that the current evolutionary family trees are no more than speculation. Creationists are often accused for misusing Steven Gould's famous quote about fossil tree diagrams. 'The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.' (Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), 'Evolution's erratic pace'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(5), May 1977, p. 14.) Seems our use of Gould's quote has been proved correct after all. (Ref. quotes, creationism, pachycephalosaurus)